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'It Is A Prosecution': Benghazi Hearing Plagued By Infighting

The congressional Benghazi committee questioned former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for nearly 11 hours on Oct. 22. However, the investigation into the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya -- which left three Americans, including a diplomat, dead -- has been going on for 17 months.

The prolonged investigation sparked infighting between committee members along partisan lines. Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington attacked Republican Rep. Trey Growdy of South Carolina the chairman of the committee, by saying that the investigation hadn’t found any new information,.

"We didn't investigate 9/11 — you know, 9/11/2001, just to specify — with the length and depth that we have chose to investigate this,” Smith said during the hearing, according to Talking Points Memo. "So again, I come back to the central point of the central problem with this committee. It is a prosecution. It is a partisan exercise. It is not trying to investigate and find out the truth.”

Smith’s claims are slightly exaggerated. The 9/11 Commission was established in November 2002 and concluded in August 2004. However, according to a Sept. 28 press release from Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee, the panel has cost more money and lasted longer than the congressional investigations of Hurricane Katrina, Watergate and Pearl Harbor.

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Cummings also claimed that the committee has already used $4.6 million.

“The Benghazi Select Committee has now become one of the longest and least active congressional investigations in history,” he wrote in the press release.